Enhancing the value of nitrogen from rapeseed meal for microbial oil production

Rapeseed meal, a major byproduct of biodiesel production, has been used as a low-cost raw material for the production of a generic microbial feedstock through a consolidated bioconversion process. Various strategies were tested for the production of a novel fermentation medium, rich in free amino nitrogen (FAN): commercial enzymes (CEs) (2.7 mg g−1 dry meal), liquid state fungal pre-treatment (LSF) using Aspergillus oryzae (4.6 mg g−1), liquid state fungal pre-treatment followed by fungal autolysis (LSFA) (9.13 mg g−1), liquid state pre-treatment using fungal enzymatic broth (EB) (2.1 mg g−1), but the best strategy was a solid state fungal pre-treatment followed by fungal autolysis (34.5 mg g−1).The bioavailability of the nitrogen sources in the novel medium was confirmed in fed-batch bioreactor studies, in which 82.3 g dry cell L−1 of the oleaginous yeast Rhodosporidium toruloides Y4 was obtained with a lipid content of 48%. The dry cell weight obtained was higher than that obtained using conventional yeast extract, due to a higher total nitrogen content in the novel biomedium. The fatty acids obtained from the microbial oil were similar to those derived from rapeseed oil.

► Solid state fermentation and autolysis were used to obtain FAN from rapeseed meal.
► The novel fermentation medium was at least as good as conventional yeast extract.
► The fatty acid methyl esters (FAMEs) were similar to those derived from rapeseed.